Longfellow Clubs Going Green

NATICK, MA — The Longfellow Clubs in Natick, MA, expects to save $7,000 a year on its energy costs by switching to a more energy-efficient system.

The club recently partnered with American DG Energy and will get a large amount of its electricity, heat, domestic hot water and swimming pool heat directly from a 75-kilowatt cogeneration facility.

Longfellow Clubs owner Laury Hammel says the facility had been searching for a way to reduce its energy bills because tennis and health clubs require a lot of energy to operate. In addition to reducing the club's energy bill, the system will reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 306 tons per year, which is equal to nearly 83 acres of forest absorbing the CO2 emissions.

Energy costs affect everyone, Hammel says.

“As energy costs skyrocket, every club operator is looking for ways to save money,” Hammel says. “In addition, there are those club operators like ourselves…who are concerned about decreasing our carbon footprint in an effort to stop global warming. More and more club owners are realizing that global warming is bad on our planet and thus bad for business.”

Hammel also says that the greener way of running things will eventually catch on as energy costs rise in the health club industry.